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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483010">Age and Grace</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede'>Guede</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Football RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Coming of Age, Experimental Style, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Transfer Window</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:27:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All it really is, is just trying to be a good man.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Zlatan Ibrahimović/Henrik Larsson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Age and Grace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally written and posted to LiveJournal in 2009.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>*I did ask Figo,* Zlatan says on the phone.  There’s Spanish floating around behind him, Spanish for sure but you can’t make out the words and it’s not because you’re rusty or that the connection is bad.  It’s a different accent, is the problem.  *But hey, I figured I’d call you too.  It was a while since Figo’s been there and—*</p>
<p>“I don’t think it’s changed that much,” you say.  “That kind of place doesn’t, not with what you need to know.  And you’re moving already so you can’t be asking me about what you want to know.  You know that already.”</p>
<p>There’s a moment, between your last word and his laugh, where it’s perfectly quiet and he sounds like he did years ago, shaky, surprised, defensive.  Then he laughs and the roll of it down the line is as confident and smooth as the swing of a good hit in the air, one where you know before there’s even any contact that the ball will go precisely where you want it.  *C’mon, Henke.*</p>
<p>“Don’t kid me,” you say softly.  “You’re not a kid anymore.”</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>He came after you, predictably enough.  You showed him a calm face and a helping hand, and he looked at the hand like he’d never ever seen such a thing before.  And he looked at your face and he told you the same thing he’d told the others, that he didn’t need any fucking help.  So you told him well, all right, but if he ever wanted you, you’d be around.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’ll be around.  We’re all stuck in the same hotel.</p>
<p>Yes, you said serenely.</p>
<p>Fuck you.</p>
<p>You can try, you said serenely.</p>
<p>He stared at you a bit, and then he walked off.  You went to call your wife and kids, and to eat something before you turned in for the night.  Maybe you were tired, maybe you were already getting old.  When you think back and remember your age, it always surprises you the most: the thing about memory is that it always starts earlier than it should.</p>
<p>In the morning he said good morning to you, and you said good morning back.  You both went through training and he irritated people, as usual, and people irritated him, as usual, and at some point he told you to go fuck yourself.  You told him you’d rather not, and at lunch you were nice to him again.  He didn’t understand and you let him stew in it.  You didn’t have an ulterior motive or anything, although to this day he still thinks you did it on purpose.  You keep telling him you’re just a guy who’s a bit older than him, not some saint or sage or anything like that, but he still doesn’t get it.  It’s just that you’ve got manners, but some days, you just want to eat your food and get through training and maybe watch a movie before you go to bed.  You’re boring.  You were bored.  That’s all.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>*I’m not.  That’s why I’m calling,* he says.  *I want the real truth.  Not this horseshit they always feed us.*</p>
<p>You sigh and rub your forehead.  Your knees hurt.  Your back hurts.  You’re too old for this, you’ve been thinking awhile, even if you love it, and you want to go inside and cool down from the day and be with your family already.  “Then why are you calling after the transfer went through?  If you’re asking for advice—”</p>
<p>*Fuck, no.  I’m just asking you to tell me how it is.  What, are you mad at me?  This a bad time?*  He’s annoyed and worried and demanding, and it’s kind of charming, across thousands of miles and several years, how lazy-ass his sense of consideration still can be.  Now he asks, of course.  *Henke?*</p>
<p>“I just got out of training.  My bones ache,” you tell him.  You walk around in your front yard and wave when somebody in one of the upstairs windows sees you, one of the kids.  Then you turn around, your heel dug deep into the grass.  “All right, what?”</p>
<p>*Sorry,* he says.  *It’s just I wanted to know what you thought.  I’ll call back.*</p>
<p>You laugh at him.  “Too late, Ibra.  You’ve got me up already, there’d be no point.”</p>
<p>Maybe the connection’s bad on his end.  His voice sharpens, cuts itself in two and then butterflies out so you can hear every little injury in it.  *I’m sorry, really.  I didn’t know you’d be tired.  I’ll call—*</p>
<p>“Do that and I won’t pick up.  I’ll know it’s you then,” you tell him.</p>
<p>He’s quiet.  He just breathes a few times.  The Argentine Spanish fades, overlapping with a snippet of Italian that dies nearly as soon as it comes.  You can hear his feet slapping on the floor now, echoing wherever he is.  You can pretty much see the expression on his face as well, intent and uncertain all at once.  He’s still younger than you are, for all that he’s grown up now.</p>
<p>*Just…what did you think?* he says, about when you’re about to ask again.  *I know what I want.  I just want to know what I have to do to get it.  I already know I’ll do it, but I don’t know <i>what</i> it is, all right?*</p>
<p>“All right,” you say equably, and you shake your head at the frustrated noise he makes.  You can see <i>that</i> face too.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>You’re always so fucking calm, he accused you one time, and you nodded.  People were still around and it wasn’t going to do any good to get mad.  You kept walking, adjusting the strap of your duffel on your shoulder.</p>
<p>Zlatan, I’m going now, you told him.</p>
<p>He stuck with you.  You don’t remember what he said but you remember the tone, the way his vowels flattened, and the whites of his eyes.  When he’s mad, the skin of his face pulls away from his eyes so they look like they’re bulging, so the whites stand out that much more.  The two of you kept walking together, huddled together like you were having some intimate conversation except it was really all one-sided.  And then you were by yourselves in some hallway, just you and the bland concrete walls, and you swung hard so your duffel slammed him in the stomach.</p>
<p>He’s a big guy.  He didn’t go down right away.  You had to hit him again, and then dodge the swipe he took at you.  That was a little slow, from his surprise, but he still had that kind of reflex, to hit out at anything that hit him.</p>
<p>Then he was on the ground and looking at you, and even flat on his ass he still came up so far that it didn’t seem like you were looking down at him.  But he was looking up at you, said his blinking, gape-mouthed expression.</p>
<p>What the fuck, he said.</p>
<p>I’m fucking mad, that’s what the fuck, you said.  Calm my ass, you naïve idiot.  I have to be calm out there but not now, and now I’m mad.  And you’re not helping.</p>
<p>He stared at you.  He was real young back then, weedy when he stopped moving, when he stopped talking, when he stopped being the best thing in Swedish football and started being the kid he was.  I.  What.  Henke.</p>
<p>Don’t fucking call me that right now, you fucking dense prick.  You started walking again.  And leave me alone.  I want to kill something, I’m so mad, and I don’t want to kill you but if you get in my way again, I will.</p>
<p>He let you go.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>*All right,* Zlatan echoes.  He’s shaking his head over there, shaking it and grinning.  *You’d say the end of the world was all right.*</p>
<p>You check the mail while you’re outside.  Nothing important, so you stick the whole bundle under your arm.  “Don’t be an idiot,” you say.</p>
<p>*Sorry.*</p>
<p>He’s not.  He’s an idiot the way he is about everything else, proud and unapologetic, and so honest about it that frankly, you can’t really call him an idiot.  He makes average idiots look like poseurs.  “It’s a good club.  It’s got its quirks and you better learn them, but—”</p>
<p>*I <i>know</i> that, Henke,* he drawls in an exasperated tone.  *That’s not what I’m asking about.  C’mon, what did you <i>think</i>?*</p>
<p>“What did I think?” you repeat slowly.  You lean against your front door and look down the road, and as time passes you’re looking down a few other roads than that one.  Then you blink and you’re home again, in Sweden, almost thirty-eight and aching and tired and <i>tired</i>.  You’re thinking of retiring, for real for good for the absolute end.</p>
<p><i>Again</i>? he’s going to say, brows raised over sad, sympathetic, disappointed but already distant eyes.  He’s older now.  He knows to get over it and keep going, that’s the way life is, it’ll never hurt again as much as it does right now so there’s that to look forward to.</p>
<p>“What do I think,” you say.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p> I think you’re even more of a shit than everybody else thinks, you told him.</p>
<p>For a moment he was hurt.  You could see exactly where your words bruised him, what with how hopelessly expressive he was.  Is.  Then he was filling up your doorway and then some, spilling a hand, half his left calf into your room even though you hadn’t asked him in and wasn’t planning to do so.  I’m sorry, he declared, like it was so.</p>
<p>You stood there and rubbed your eyes, and almost wished you had your dreads back so you could yank at them.  Zlatan it is goddamn three in the morning and I don’t want to do this.</p>
<p>But I’m sorry!  He kept willing it to be so, with his empathic tone and pleading eyes.  He could plead, even back then when he was raw and angry and would raze a country to make up for one finger pointed at a chink in his armor.  If you wanted to listen for it.</p>
<p>You didn’t want to.  You’d opened the door, regretted it and blurted out the first thought in your head because my God, you weren’t elderly but you weren’t young either, and now you had the consequences waving their hands around at you.  Isn’t there curfew? you mumbled</p>
<p>Yeah, and shit.  Quick.  He slithered past you, then tried to duck behind your door, casting anxious glances behind himself.</p>
<p>You looked at the bits of shoulder and the tufts of hair and the knobby knees sticking out past the wood.  Then you shut the door, and out in the hall, the prowling staff member passed ignorantly by your room.  Zlatan, you’re annoying.</p>
<p>Yeah, sorry.  Then he remembered why he was here and hunched his shoulders, still trying to fit himself into the corner.  Uh.</p>
<p>Sorry I hit you, you eventually said.  Are you okay?</p>
<p>Oh!  Yeah, fine, fine, I can take it.  He blinked, then grimaced.  Not that that wasn’t…that you don’t…have a good…</p>
<p>You rolled your eyes and went back into the room, where you sat on the single bed.  One of the perks of being older, and one you were all right with taking.  You generally don’t ask for much because you don’t need it, and don’t like asking for what you don’t need, but a good night’s sleep is something you need.  It’s not that important to me to be able to beat up somebody, you said.</p>
<p>Hey, you didn’t beat me up.  You know, I’m taller.</p>
<p>He stood there and you looked at him, and finally you twisted around and climbed back into bed.  You stuffed your face into the pillow, so you could shut your eyes and they would stop hurting, and fluffed the sheets with your foot.  Then you moved it away from the edge.  Zlatan, sit down already.</p>
<p>I really am sorry.  He poked the mattress with his hand, feeling around for nearly a minute before he finally sat down.  It wasn’t two seconds before he started bouncing nervously.  I didn’t know you were mad.  I would’ve left you alone.  It’s just I thought you couldn’t get mad.</p>
<p>You were not having this conversation, you thought as you pulled your head out of the pillow.  Zlatan, that’s stupid.  Don’t be stupid.</p>
<p>Okay, he said quietly.  He stopped bouncing, and you put your head down.  After a few more minutes, he got up and then he sat down on the other side.  I’m gonna stay here for a bit, so I don’t get caught.  Okay?</p>
<p>Hmmph, you said.</p>
<p>Henk—Henrik?  Are you still mad at me?</p>
<p>You were having this conversation, you thought as you rolled over.  You stared at the ceiling.  Zlatan, I wasn’t mad at you in the first place.  I was mad at what happened, like everyone else, and you just wouldn’t walk away from it.  Okay?</p>
<p>Then you looked at him, and he nodded dutifully.  You sighed and waited for it, watching him pull his nose and fidget with part of the blanket.</p>
<p>Okay, good.  We’re good then? he not-asked.  Because I don’t really want to be your bad side.  You’re pretty nasty when you want to be.</p>
<p>We’re fine, you said as you sat up.  And like I said, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have lost my temper, even if you were—that was wrong of me.</p>
<p>He looked blank.  Then light dawned, and he grinned a little.  Oh, man, no, I meant that little sucker punch you did in the first half.  He mimed it.  That was brutal, Henke.  I liked it.</p>
<p>You would, you sighed.  You know, I have to, because I’m short.  You’re not, and you can do other things.</p>
<p>Yeah, well, if that was true then shit like today wouldn’t happen, would it? he muttered sourly.  He looked away, then rolled back his shoulders roughly and flopped onto the empty side of the bed.  He moved restlessly around a bit before turning over and looking up at you.  Thanks, Henke.  Shit.  I mean—</p>
<p>Whatever, you said, closing your eyes.  Just shut up now.  I want to sleep.</p>
<p>Okay, he said.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>“I think it’s the best club I’ve ever been to,” you tell him.  And you give him some explanation, some details.  It’s all heartfelt.  You don’t need to lie about it, so you don’t even get to whether or not you’d ever want to.</p>
<p>*Hmm.*  He’s pursing up his mouth now.  *But what do you think?*</p>
<p>You run your fingers across your forehead.  They catch sometimes in the deep wrinkles you make as you try not to be too annoyed.  “Zlatan.”</p>
<p>*Seriously.  That’s great, I’m glad you told me that, but that’s not why I called you and you know it,* he says.</p>
<p>Yeah, you do.  It’s not that you’re reluctant or holding anything back, because there’s nothing to be reluctant about, nothing to hold back.  You can tell him like you can tell somebody on the street what time it is.  It’s just you wonder why he needs you to tell him so much.  He doesn’t need you, that’s the weird thing about this.  “Then you know, too.”</p>
<p>He exhales, rough and long.  *Henke.  I just…look, it’s a big deal.  I’m not going to pretend it isn’t.  And fuck whatever you read in the papers, because I really want—it’s not the money, and it’s not about being shitty in Italy.  Which I haven’t been, but…I just really want this, and I want it to…you know.  So I’m calling.*</p>
<p>Oh.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>You went to sleep and he woke you up, not with a kiss or a hand to the groin or anything remotely like that, but with a barking kind of snore, like the nasally call of a seal, right by your shoulder.  You jerked up and hit his forehead with your shoulder, then fell back, and he started moving around.</p>
<p>It was four-thirteen in the morning, still too early.  You were annoyed.  You grabbed his shoulder and shook him, but he had so much weight that that alone skewed your hand up onto his neck, and when he finally woke up, you were more or less cupping his jaw.  He blinked, moved his head from side to side so your fingers got into his hair.  You took out your fingers and he lifted his head, lowered it, bit his lip, and you got so sick of his hesitating that you grabbed his shoulder again.</p>
<p>Then he was fine.  He got over you, pinning you down before you could get half out of the sheets.  Your right foot got knotted up in them and you kept kicking at it for a good minute before you figured out that that was pointless.  By then he’d gone for your mouth, taken your shoulder when you pulled him aside, and then tried for your mouth again.  He kissed like his age, like he had a girlfriend and had done this before but like he just couldn’t slow down for a second.  His hand got through the tangle of sheets and found your thigh, and you had barely gotten your hands on his sides.</p>
<p>You kicked out again, got your foot against the mattress and your hands under his belly, and shoved hard.  Then you got over him while you could.  He was too heavy; you couldn’t breathe under him and you needed to.</p>
<p>He paused, his hands sliding uncertainly over your legs.  Then he shrugged and put his right hand into your sweat-pants.  He still wasn’t going to fuck you but you weren’t going to fuck him either.  That was fine.  You still did enough so that the two of you had to break off again to get his head into the pillows, so he could be loud without bringing a mess down on your heads, and by the end he’d left you breathless.  You did not, even slow-thinking in the after-glow, mention that he tended to do that plenty on the field.  Right then he didn’t need to hear that.</p>
<p>Henke, he mumbled, rolling his head under your idly-petting hand, I really like you.  So I’m glad you’re not mad at me.  I don’t give a shit what everyone else thinks but you’re not them.</p>
<p>I am, you said.  I’m short and not that fast, and my technique’s not bad but it’s not—</p>
<p>Henke, shut up.  He twisted his head enough to gaze at you, sleepy under his lashes.  You’re great.</p>
<p>I’m not.  You’re just young.</p>
<p>And annoying.  And he lifted his head and grinned, so careless and knowing that you wanted to hit him, to cradle his head in both your hands.  Instead you snorted and he put his head down again, and let you pet him some more.  The thing is, you really are calm all the time, aren’t you?  Till you’re mad.  It’s not an act like with the others.  You’re just real.</p>
<p>You stopped petting him and he made a discontented noise, then pulled your hand back on his head.  I just do what I do, you told him.</p>
<p>Yeah, exactly.  I like that.  He looked at you again, and his eyes weren’t right.  It took you years to understand why, because that’s how long it took for him to grow up and look like that on purpose.  You’ll be like that forever, won’t you?  When <i>I’m</i> old, I’m gonna call you up and you’ll still be Henke.  I mean, you’ll be different, ‘cause yeah, you get old, but you won’t be that different.  You’ll still say…Zlatan, you’re annoying.  Or whatever you need to say to me.</p>
<p>Okay, you told him.  Not because you saw the point of his babbling, or because you had some flash of wisdom, or anything like that.  Because it was five-something and you were really goddamn tired now, and you liked him too in spite of yourself, himself, but God, he needed to shut up before he got you mad again.  That’s why you said okay then, and let him smile and put his head on your arm.</p>
<p>You said okay to a lot, you know now, having looked back.</p>
<p>*	*	*</p>
<p>“Zlatan, get off the phone and go to Barcelona,” you say, sighing.  “Go wrap up your transfer already.  You already know what you need to know.  So go.  Stop wasting my time.  Stop wasting <i>your</i> time.  Okay?”</p>
<p>*Yeah,* he says, so relieved you can feel his ribs loosen up around his lungs.  *Yeah.  Hey, Henke, thanks.  You know, you’ll have to come down there and see me.*</p>
<p>Yeah, you know now.  And you’re all right with it.  You didn’t foresee it all and didn’t plan most of it, but the way it’s worked out, you couldn’t have done better if you had done it on purpose.  You with your creaking knees and fading career, and him on the phone, still bugging you, and deep down you’re glad for it.  So you answer: “Okay.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Set in July 2009.  Zlatan consulted national teammate and friend <a href="http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/138/spain/2009/08/05/1423789/barcelona-ace-zlatan-ibrahimovic-the-pressure-is-on-real">Henrik Larsson</a> on his move to Barcelona.  Henrik Larsson generally appears very calm, but he has his <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2003/may/18/uefa.sport1">other sides</a>.</p>
<p>Written for LiveJournal user tall_tree.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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